There are many companies in Australia that seek to buy back your old gold and silver jewellery. And with the prevailing uncertainty regarding the stock market’s spectacular fluctuations many people find gold and silver to be a popular investment indeed.
In fact, more and more Australians are now interested in finding out the value of their gold and silver articles, bars, coins, and jewelry so as to be able to determine their own financial liquidity. Moreover, people might look into investing in precious metals like gold and silver because the fluctuations in the economy may not show high variations in their value. Though you may have conflicts on which metal to invest in, and for that, you can explore the benefits of adding gold vs silver to your portfolio to choose between various options. Also, while selling gold, research on its market price and other necessary information before taking any action.
Taking advantage of this, many firms and companies have recently cropped up and promise to pay you the very ‘best possible’ prices for the precious metals in your possession. They promise to give you the best possible deal when you trade in old, broken and obsolete pieces of gold and silver jewellery for hard cash. But the question is; who will actually determine the value of the items in your possession?
Unfortunately, many such business entities offer rates far below the bullion value of your precious metals inventory. You may not be able to detect anything wrong due to the fact they would be offering you a substantially bigger amount than the price at which you purchased it. But please keep in mind the fact that it is entirely due to the rise in global bullion prices and not because of the inherent ‘generosity’ of the buyer who may ostensibly be offering a fair price, when that is quite simply not the case. Not to put too fine a point to it, but you just might end up being swindled. Always remember, that as a general rule, the value of value of bullion is usually decided by the value of its precious metals component, I.e. their overall weight, mass and more importantly, their purity.
Let us take the example of gold. Its purity is typically determined in karats. The ‘gold Karat‘ is basically a unit of purity for gold alloys, and as such has nothing to do with the weight of the precious metal.
When gold jewellery is bought and sold in the market, its value is usually determined by its Karat. The highest karat gold would be 24 karat, I.e. 100 % gold with zero percentage of any other metals. Unfortunately, such gold is too malleable to be converted to lasting jewellery pieces or any other item. This is why it is usually mixed with other metals to create durable pieces of jewellery. The ratio of other metals is inversely proportional to the karat rate. In other words the more it is mixed with other metals, such as silver, copper, or zinc, the lesser the karat. For instance, 22 Karat gold would have 8.4% other metals and 14 Karat gold would have 75% and 255 other metals.
Similarly, silver bullion too may be purchased or sold by its weight and purity. The more pure the silver, the higher its value.
